Euralille: The Making of a New City Centre

Euralille: The Making of a New City Centre
Koolhaas, Nouvel, Portzamparc, Vasconi, Duthilleul: Architects
Editors Espacé Croise and Isabelle Menu,
Birkhauser, 1996

Euralille is regarded as the most spectacular architectural and urban planning project in Europe of the last five years. The core of the recently completed plans for this large, completely new city quarter was the TGV station, stop for the «Eurostar» train between London and Paris. The master plan of Rem Koolhaas emerged from an international competition as the winning entry ahead of works by Vittorio Gregotti, Norman Foster, Oswald Mathias Ungers, and others. This plan forms the framework for the sensational buildings by Christian de Portzamparc (office tower for Credit Lyonnais), Claude Vasconi (World Trade Centre), Jean Nouvel (shopping and office center), Jean-Marie Duthilleul (TGV station), and Rem Koolhaas (congress center and rock concert hall).

The book describes the creation of the new quarter, outlines the design processes, and shows extensively the individual buildings. The documentation is supplemented by floor plans, structural drawings, and other technical information. In a series of interviews the architects comment upon their work and explain the backgrounds of their plans. Well-known critics such as Stanislaus von Moos, Jean-Louis Cohen, Jean Attali, and finally Rem Koolhaas himself establish a theoretical context for Euralille and discuss the results.